Winter at the White Oaks Lodge (25 page)

Everything was a blur, a sickening and
blood-red blur before my terrified eyes. Mathias carried me directly to his truck and helped me inside. He cupped my knees and promised, “I'll be right back,” and then sprinted into White Oaks for no more than thirty seconds. He had our coats in his arms when he returned, climbing quickly beside me and putting the truck into gear; less than two minutes later we'd exited onto I35 to drive the ten miles to Rose Lake. I gathered myself together enough to call Marie's phone, but she didn't answer and panic again clamped itself around my heart.

Mathias kept his hand on my left knee, squeezing gently, offering wordless comfort. He said only, “We'll be there in just a minute.”

He drove eighty miles an hour on the interstate and we reached the hospital in less than fifteen minutes. Time seemed sharp and clear, etched before me in the air. I ran inside almost before he'd parked, rushing to the front desk, heart in my throat. I hadn't been here since Millie's eighteen-month check-up. The place smelled horrible and the florescent lighting was nightmarish tonight, green-tinted and nauseating.

“Millie Jo Gordon,” I demanded, though my throat was hoarse. “I'm her mother. She came in with her grandma and her…her father.”

The woman behind the desk nodded and clicked a few keys on a computer. We were in a waiting room, semi-crowded, and I scanned frantically for any sign of the Utleys. Mathias came behind me and I wanted to collapse backward against him; I sought his hand and he held mine tightly.

“They just admitted her,” the woman said. “Room 15, back here,” and she led the way.

I burst into that room like a bank robber with guns drawn. Marie and Noah both stood at once, but I had eyes only for my daughter, who was pale and lying in a hospital bed no more than five feet from the door. I raced to her side and the man examining her, clearly a doctor of some kind, said, “Careful, ma'am.”

“Mama,” she whispered.

I put my hands on her face and she smiled weakly at me. Relief at seeing her whole and hale before me battled with the intensity of my fear of not knowing what was happening. I steadied my voice with all of my willpower, even as tears poured out of my eyes, and said, “Millie Jo, I'm here, baby, I'm here.”

Mathias had come into the room too; I heard him quietly greeting Marie and Noah.

“What's wrong?” I asked the doctor breathlessly.

“My best guess is that it's her appendix,” he said. “Honestly, I don't want to wait on getting her into the operating room. Are you her mother?”

“I am,” I said, barely audibly. I wrapped my left hand around the top bar on the side of the bed, my other on Millie's face. Mathias was there at once, and he put his hand firmly against my back, giving me the strength I needed to remain standing. I couldn't look away from Millie Jo.

“Mama, my tummy hurts bad,” she said, and her little voice, so quiet and vulnerable, sent needles of pain through me.

“We're going to take care of that, little one,” the doctor told her. He looked at Mathias and his eyebrows drew in just slightly, as though in confusion. “Are you her father?”

“No, that's me,” Noah said, clearing his throat from behind us. “I'm her father.”

The doctor said, “Do we have both of your consent to take her to surgery?”

“Yes,” Noah said and I could only nod. I felt as though the doctor was about to cut out my heart.

“Then we're going to get her prepped and ready. It's a very routine procedure,” he said, clearly intending to reassure us.

Marie came immediately near and said, “We'll be right here waiting for you, Millie. All of us, all right, brave girl?”

“You'll be just fine, sweetheart,” I told my daughter, and then informed the doctor, “I'm coming with.”

“Ma'am, I have to ask you to wait here. I can't have parents in the operating room, I'm sorry. Honey,” and he addressed Millie Jo, “Will you come with me for a little while?”

Millie, my little trooper, nodded and said again, “My tummy hurts so much.”

“I love you,” I told her, bending close to kiss her forehead, breathing in her scent. “We'll be right here, like Gramma said.”

Nothing had ever ripped at my soul more than watching them wheel her away on the rolling bed. A nurse came bustling into the room and directed us to a separate waiting room, occupied by nothing more than a coffee table with magazines and a pot of stale coffee. The night was black and oppressive as a tar pit, pressing against the glass of the window. A huge clock, the kind that had always graced the walls of my elementary school classrooms, had a second hand that ticked audibly.

Marie hugged me close at once, saying, “Oh, Camille, I'm so sorry. She was just fine and then suddenly she turned white and said her stomach hurt. I tried to call you, I did, and then I got scared. She was crying and crying, and I remembered when this one,” and she indicated Noah, “had his appendix burst in second grade. We just decided we better get her to the hospital.”

“No, it's the right thing,” I said, curtailing my sobs with determination, patting Marie's back. I said sincerely, “Thank you for getting her here.”

“I think I'll run to the bathroom,” Marie said then..

In her absence, a mushroom cloud of tension seemed to form over the cramped waiting room. Mathias sat down carefully, his eyes worried upon me; silently I studied Noah, who remained standing, his face as pale as Millie's had been, his eyes unblinking. He looked terrible and I felt a small splash of sympathy.

“I'm sorry, Camille,” he said then, and his voice was rough, as though he maybe had a cold. Or was emotional. He had shown such a lack of emotions regarding me and my child that I found this difficult to believe.

“Sorry for what?” I asked quietly.

Noah's eyes whisked up and down my outfit, almost involuntarily, as though just noticing that I was dressed up. He blinked and said, “For all of this.”

I couldn't deal with him right now, on top of everything else. I sank beside Mathias and tipped my forehead to his shoulder; he shifted at once and got his arm around me, cuddling me close to his side. I felt as though I'd been hit by a truck as I began weeping like a child.

“Camille,” he murmured into my hair. And without any self-consciousness, he stood just enough to lift me onto his lap, where he could get both arms around me. I clung to him and let his warmth and scent comfort me. Mathias cupped my head with one hand and I heard him quietly order Noah, “Will you or your mom call Joan and tell her what's going on? And Joelle, too, please.”

Noah did so; there was no arguing with Mathias's tone. I clutched his shirt and it grew wet in blotches from my tears. But I was at the end of my rope after everything that had happened since I'd bumped into Jake in the hallway at White Oaks. I recalled the snake of fear that had entered my thoughts earlier this evening, when Millie was leaving with her grandma.

Trust your instinct
, I reminded myself.
It's never wrong
.

And as hard as it was for me to trust anyone, my instinct told me to trust Mathias. He was mine and I was his, and I understood as we sat there on the hard-edged vinyl chair in the Rose Lake hospital waiting room just how much this was true. He held me to his heart and I calmed after a time, but neither of us was willing to release the other. Marie came back and told us that she'd talked to Grandma and Mom, and Mathias thanked her. Noah disappeared, but I didn't care one bit.

“Camille,” Mathias whispered into my hair. “I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.”

“I know,” I whispered back, my nose plugged and my throat raw. “I'm so glad.”

Later in the evening Mom and Aunt Jilly were there, both of them with red-rimmed eyes as they flanked the chair in which Mathias and I were sitting. I hardly had the strength to lift my head, half-dozing, but they understood. I heard their voices pouring over me like warm water, and their hands, upon me, smoothing my hair and patting my back.

“You love my daughter,” Mom said to Mathias. “Don't you?”

“I do,” he said back, his voice hoarse, and his arms tightened around me.

“As it should be,” Aunt Jilly said. And then, “Camille. She's going to be all right, you hear me?”

I nodded and reached to clasp her hand. Aunt Jilly took it in both of hers, small and strong and warm around mine. And no more than a quarter hour later, the doctor came to tell me the same thing.

***

Millie Jo
was released the next evening. Mathias and I were there to bring her home; neither of us had showered or slept, had hardly eaten, but we were so grateful to see her smiling that nothing else mattered. Mom had left the car seat for Mathias's truck and I sat in the back seat along with Millie, smoothing her hair repeatedly. She was pale but otherwise seemed just fine; my eyes roved over her time and again, noting everything.

“Mama, that wasn't a good pwesent,” she kept saying.

Grandma and Aunt Ellen were waiting at home with open arms. Millie got kisses and hugs all around, before we tucked her into bed with a dozen or so of her stuffed animals; she was asleep almost at once.

“You two look exhausted,” Grandma said then. “Camille, I don't often insist, but I'd like you to go to bed.”

Mathias, who was sitting on the edge of my bed near me, after having kissed Millie good-night, said quietly, “I'm staying. Joan, I don't mean any disrespect, but I'm staying here too.”

Grandma heard the earnestness in his voice and watched the way I slipped my hand possessively into his, silently affirming that I agreed with this pronouncement. She sighed only a little as she said, “I'll grab a sleeping bag then.”

I changed into my pajamas in the bathroom and scrounged up an old t-shirt for Mathias to wear to sleep. It was pitch-dark out my dormer windows and he was stretched out full-length on the floor beside my bed as I eased the door closed and moved at once to him; he sat up and collected me into his arms and we braided ourselves together. I pressed my lips to Mathias's temple and whispered, “Thank you for staying.”

He kissed my lips with infinite sweetness, holding me close. Being pressed so securely to him brought to my attention that my breasts were full and sore; I had not nursed Millie to sleep in two nights, as was our usual custom, and I reminded myself that I had decided that two years was a perfect age to discontinue nursing. Millie was more than old enough; I was reluctant to stop only because to do so seemed to signify the end of something unutterably special between us, almost indefinable. Maybe I felt that it somehow symbolized that she would no longer need me quite as much.

“I decided that I was going to stop nursing Millie Jo,” I whispered. Mathias skimmed one hand down over the curve of my hip and I slipped my right leg between both of his.

“Why's that?” he whispered, smoothing hair from my face with the same hand. “Doesn't it help her sleep?”

“It does. That's the only time she nurses anymore. But she's a big girl now, and I think that it's time. At least, it seemed like time before her appendix.”

“You don't need to rush anything, sweetheart,” he whispered tenderly. “You know that.”

“I know,” I whispered, snuggled close. I said, “But it's time, no matter how I feel about it, even though it makes me a little sad. I know it's silly, but I feel like it means she won't need me as much.”

“Hey,” he said softly but intently. “Millie still needs you with all her heart. She's your baby and she'll always be your baby. It's not silly, honey.” He lifted to one elbow and studied my eyes in the dimness of the quiet room. He said, “And I need you, Camille, with all my heart. I need that look in your eyes that tells I'm crazy but you love me anyway. I need your smile and your arms around me, and your sweet tender soul. Oh God, I need you,” and he punctuated this with a soft kiss, full on my lips. “So don't go thinking that we don't need you, because that's silly.”

Tears trickled over my temples as I wrapped him close to me. Mathias pressed his lips to my shoulder and said, “Do you know how much I love you? Tell me that you know.”

“I know it,” I said. “I do.”

“Sleep, sweetheart,” he said then, softly, cradling me. “Sleep, and I'll hold you.”

***

In the
morning, before Millie woke up, we examined the picture of Malcolm Carter, using the early-morning sunlight and the magnifying glass. I had slept curled against him, sharing the sleeping bag.

“This is good practice for when we go camping this summer,” I'd whispered when we first woke, snuggling deliciously in the silver dawn.

“It is. And I love your wild hair,” he replied against the back of my neck, his arms around my waist. He was hard as a rock and whispered apologetically, “I'm sorry, I can't help it with you right here. Camille…no…we can't…” though his protest was noticeably weak; I had reached behind me and was stroking him through his boxers. He shuddered and insisted, “No, I'd feel so guilty…”

I relented and he bit my shoulder, just lightly, making me shiver too. He promised, “Later. When it's light enough I want to see the name on Malcolm's wrist. And I still haven't given you your Valentine's present.”

When the sun crested and sent shimmers into the window, I sat up and rolled to my knees to quietly grab Malcolm's picture from my nightstand. When I turned back, Mathias was leaning up on one elbow, watching me, and his blue eyes were absolutely blazing with desire; my own body responded instantly and I almost gulped. He shook his head slowly, his dimple appearing, and whispered, “I'm going to cry. Look at you,” and I realized I was wearing nothing more than an old white t-shirt and my own pair of tattered boxers, both so threadbare that they were nearly see-through; my nipples were as full and round as gumdrops against the fabric, and he rolled to his back and covered his face, groaning a little.